A THIRST FOR KNOWL­EDGE

Fancy prop­ping up the bar along­side a pro­fes­sor? The in­au­gu­ral Auck­land Rais­ing the Bar (Au­gust 29) sees 21 lead­ing aca­demics from the Uni­ver­sity of Auck­land give free talks in in­ner-city drink­ing es­tab­lish­ments on top­ics as var­ied as space travel, how to build pop songs, shark brains and why ter­ror­ists want to kill us. It’s part of a world­wide ini­tia­tive that kicked off in New York, with the no­ble aim of mak­ing ed­u­ca­tion a greater part of a city’s pop­u­lar cul­ture.